For students, outsourcing makes help only half a world away

Students in the US can still rely on tutors to help solve that tricky algebra …

After school Daniela Marinaro slips on a headset plugged into her laptop and greets her English tutor, Greeshma Salin. "We'll work on pronouns today," says Ms. Salin, typing "Daniela thinks that Daniela should give Daniela's horse Scarlett to Daniela's sister" into her chat window. "How can you make it better?" she asks Daniela.

Even with the use of the Web, their conversation isn't so different from today's tutoring experience. What sets this exchange apart, however, is the fact that Ms. Salin in southern India and Daniela is in southern California. Advances in online learning have meant that several for-profit tutoring companies have begun to invest in technologies such as multimedia chat rooms to connect students and tutors, while other companies cautiously consider the use of online tutoring services that employ instructors outside of North America.

Ms. Salin is part of a new wave of outsourcing to India: the tutoring of American students. Twice a week for a month now, Ms. Salin, who grew up speaking the Indian language Malayalam at home, has been tutoring Daniela in English grammar, comprehension and writing.

Using a simulated whiteboard on their computers, connected by the Internet, and a copy of Daniela's textbook in front of her, she guides the teenager through the intricacies of nouns, adjectives and verbs.

Daniela, an eighth grader at Malibu Middle School, said, "I get C's in English and I want to score A's," and added that she had given no thought to her tutor being 20,000 miles away, other than the situation feeling "a bit strange in the beginning."

Needless to say, critics have been vocal in their opposition to the offshoring, noting that the industry has few standards and employees are not closely monitored. Sensitive to such charges, online tutoring firms in the US have adopted several approaches; Tutor.com uses only instructors based in North America, while rival SmarThinking has employees in South Africa, the Philippines, India, and Chile, but ensures that only tutors in the United States provide English lessons.

However, online tutoring, according to its advocates, has the advantage of eliminating factors such as skin color and appearance. SmarThinking's chief executive and co-founder, Burck Smith, claims that the Internet makes online tutoring "more egalitarian than most classrooms." With distance learning, students in rural areas who may not have ready access to qualified teachers can now receive instruction online. Parents and students who use such services are also aware of the savings; the Marinaros say that Growing Stars costs a third of what they were paying an in-home tutor.

Though still a limited phenomenon, public school students could begin to receive similar help. Thanks to the No Child Left Behind act, students enrolled in government-identified struggling schools are eligible for free after-school help with reading and math—a market that overseas companies are eager to expand into. With schools and students under increasing pressure to perform academically, the demand for such services is evident; at US$27-$30 per hour for SmarThinking, $21 per hour for Growing Stars, and US$100 a month for Tutor.com's unlimited service, low-income students who are eligible for supplemental education services under No Child Left Behind can use government funds to pay approved tutoring providers.

As someone who works in e-learning, globalization is a very real business environment for the industry. Nowadays, content can be designed in the US, then developed in India, where it can then be uploaded to a course-management system on a server in Germany before being taught by an instructor in Taiwan. The real power of the Internet as an educational medium is not in its ability to cheaply broadcast canned messages at the masses, but in its ability to network students and teachers together in a peer-to-peer model. Though both sides are acutely aware that homework outsourcing might be perfectly feasible, for-profit firms risk being embroiled in a politically charged debate. As industry analyst J. Mark Jackson notes, "The person who's not doing that work is the local teacher."